


As Brave As I Know How

by Tom_Tomorrow



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Gun Violence, Hurt Alex Danvers, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Protective Maggie Sawyer, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26553007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tom_Tomorrow/pseuds/Tom_Tomorrow
Summary: Maggie feels her bare palms scrape against the rough ground as she scrambles towards her fiancé, her future wife, trying to reign in some semblance of anything but the sheer terror because all she can think about is the spray of red against her face and the horribly, confused way Alex had looked at her when that shot rang out in a sea full of gun fire.And… those DEO regulated vests are supposed to be bulletproof.They're not.Not against bullets met for a World Killer.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Kara Danvers & Maggie Sawyer
Comments: 13
Kudos: 155





	As Brave As I Know How

It rushes in all at once.

The screams of National City’s residents left behind in the frenzy of an evacuation order that came too little too late, the crackling, dusky smoke of the raging fires that were too angry, too ravenous for the damp rain to make a difference, the salt of rusted copper and incinerated lead powder heavy at the back of her throat, and her aching, burning muscles yelling at her to stop, to take a breath, to anything.

It rushes in like the ignition of a lighter as soon as the vortex of the wind tunnel comes to a sudden, forceful stop. 

Flying, Maggie always assumed, would be exhilarating. Like a dream. But now she is cold. 

Cold pierces her very bones; her nose and lungs feel burnt with salty water as they long for air, as Kara releases her too strong hold and the detective staggers forward, knees buckling as her hands hit the cold hard concrete of whatever parking garage the blonde dragged them into.

And still she doesn’t focus on that.

Because Alex.

AlexAlexAlexAlex-

Alex is lying on her stomach, not fortunate enough to have the bearings nor the strength to catch herself from the sudden release of her sister’s arms, eye’s half-lidded and so, so pale, the warmth of her practically seeping out with the crimson from the DEO uniform that was supposed to be bulletproof.

The detective feels her bare palms protest against the rough ground as she scrambles towards her fiancé, her future wife, trying to reign in some semblance of anything but sheer terror because all she can think about is the spray of red against her face and the horribly, confused way Alex had looked at her when that shot rang out in a sea full of gun fire.

And… and those DEO regulated vests are supposed to be bulletproof.

They're not. Not against bullets met for a World Killer.

But so much of war is just luck, the difference between an injury that can be walked off and an injury that keeps someone down for months is nothing more than the whims of chance. 

It is something she learned a long time ago. Back in Blue Springs. It is not any less true now. 

And she wants to be angry, furious even.

But she can’t.

Doesn’t have time for it. Not now.

The detective forces a steady, deep inhalation, and in the echo, beyond the chaos of Reign and the others tearing apart National City, hears Kara mumbling a raspy husk of an apology, but Maggie is looking down, down, down. Through sheer muscle memory grabbing onto Alex’s shoulders and trying to pull her up only for her eyes to settle on the crimson seeping from the reinforced fabric of her uniform, overflowing from where it’s gathered in her utility belt.

It’s a through and through, she sees, recognizing the ragged, crimson-soaked hole in the fabric. 

And God, Maggie can’t remember for the life of her if that’s a good or bad thing. 

Beneath her, Alex is struggling to get up. She’s trying, she really is. Groaning as her long, pale fingers twitch against the concrete, reaching futility for the purchase to press up against the ground that the pain won’t quite let her reach, as the red continues to spill out neatly around her, sinking into the cracks in the grey, seeping into fabric of Maggie’s own pants, framing Alex like some horrific piece of art.

“Hey, you’re okay. You’re okay. C’mon… gonna help you sit up, okay?”

She assures in a fumble of words, even when it's too much blood and the world is on fire outside. All of the muscles in Alex’s back tense up when Maggie moves her hand there, the tough, dark fabric soaking through with sweat, with… with blood.

She was used to holding Alex in her arms. She’d spent dozens of hours doing nothing but resting with Alex up against her, mapping out the planes of her back with lazy touches and lingering fingers. The detective knows how much Alex weighs and how she could make herself lighter in those easy going conversations that would last for hours when there and become infinitely heavier when those lazy weekends were a bit too lazy and she didn’t want to get out of bed.

This weight, however, is entirely wrong. 

And the terror that shoots through Maggie’s nerves is so sharp it hurts, the air around her suddenly heavy and thick and sluggish and drawn out, all the sounds out of sync and far away, when she brings both her hands behind Alex’s back and tries to turn her over, but can’t. 

Like dead weight.

Deaddeadeadead- no, she’s breathing… she’s breathing...

And she’s so lost in her head, so focused on trying to help that she completely forgets, for the briefest of moments, that she isn’t alone, that it was Kara who had whisked them into this half-empty parking garage. 

Forgets until the detective flinches reactively as the blonde’s mutilated, crimson-slicked hand clad in the torn shreds of blue reaches past her and in a combination of careful gentleness and trembling strength does what Maggie couldn’t and in a singular movement lifts her sister until she’s up against the side of someone’s abandoned Toyota Camry. 

“I’m s-sorry, so sorry, Alex.”

Kara utters again, something more like a wheeze when the taller brunette tries to spasm away, one hand coming up defensively, as the other curls in a spastic, almost desperate movement back over her stomach. 

Out of the corner of Maggie’s eye, she recognizes the battle-torn, half-silhouette of Supergirl under the flickering lights, a wail of a kid rising above the sounds of battle far away as she catalogues the other woman’s own injuries.

The shadowy, purple bruising of two black eyes swelling across her features. The misshapen, half-healed fingers of her right hand. The green-tinted blood seeping from her temple, glinting darkly off of concrete dust and pebbled glass, as it stained darkened blonde and soaked into the threads of the ripped, charred fabric of her supersuit. 

How her left arm just hangs there loosely, until Kara brings her right arm back to prop it up against her ribcage and her knee as she kneels, pressing it up against the crimson slathered on her uniform that likely isn’t just from Alex. 

And knows that that’s why she dropped them the way she did.

Knows why that was why she was just seconds too late.

Kara… the DEO… the NCPD … 

They’re fighting a battle that’s hard to win.

Hard to even keep at a stalemate even. 

It isn’t all that new of a revelation. 

She remembers Christmas Eve, just weeks ago, and that had only been Reign.

Now there are four.

Each just as angry, just as powerful, as the last. 

“Muh… M-mag… Maggie…”

Alex slurs, and Maggie’s eyes snap away from the youngest Danvers, back to the eldest, and the blood is still finding its exits, coming out in rivulets around the crevices of her fiancé’s paling fingers. 

Jesus Christ.

“Hey! Hey… I’m right here, okay? And… and Kara is too. We’re right here.”

A lifetime’s worth of protocols are flashing through her mind, frantically trying to tell her what to do next, because somewhere deep inside she knows she learned what to do in this situation, it's been pounded into her since her Academy days. Yet somehow she’s frozen. Her hands still held loosely against Alex’s shoulders like she was the one who got shot and could barely move. 

“Whug…. W-whaa- happen...”

The DEO agent garbles out, her face going another shade paler, and it’s enough for that spark of recollection to spear its way through her mind and remind her what she needs to do.

What she should be doing.

“It’s… It’s not important for right now, okay? I just… Can you just… here lemme help with the blood, okay?”

Alex doesn’t answer, at least not directly, groaning instead, but Maggie takes it as a yes, reaching with her own trembling hands as she shrugs off her police jacket and presses it up against her side. 

That, at least, does get more of a concrete reaction out of her, but the detective has to swallow the lump around her throat and convince herself that this is helping as Alex tries, but fails to push her away, that without this force she’d bleed out right there.

That couldn’t happen. 

It wouldn’t.

Beside them, the blonde hasn’t moved closer, fiddling at something with her ear, teary, cobalt eyes dark and far away as she stares down at her sister, rocking back and forth, back and forth on her heels, the movement so subtle that the detective doubts she even recognizes she was doing it.

The barest implications of shock are so obvious, Maggie wants to scream.

Jesus. This was a catastrophe. 

But she could only deal with one crisis at the time.   
‘  
“Alex… you have to let me help, okay? You have to. Can you open your eyes for me? Please?” 

Maggie pleads, trying not to sound as helpless as she feels, almost impossible when Alex’s cold, trembling fingers are like ice against her own.

“I… I-I’m d-dizzy...” 

Alex whispers faintly instead, head falling away from the detective, leading her body to tip that way and before Maggie can even think about reaching with one hand to pull her back toward her, Kara’s hand is back, pale and shaky against her sister’s shoulder, holding her upright, and the blonde’s fingers… they don’t look right at all.

“Dizzy? Yeah, you’re losing a lot of… a lot of blood, Lex. And we’ve got to help, so I need you to open your eyes. It's important.”

Somewhere deep within her world of pain, Alex’s sheer will of perseverance must still be intact because after a moment, the taller brunette was able to drag her eyelids up, slits revealing dark irises that stare up at her, almost unfocused, clouding over with shadowed pain and the remnants of shock filtering its way out. 

But those eyes are hers.

They’re open. And they’re equal. And they dilate to adjust to the poor lighting. 

And that was good.

“Good! See that wasn’t so bad!”

Maggie feels something like a smile spread reflexily across her face and imagines someone else hooking their fingers at the corners of her mouth and doing it for her because it hurts and doesn’t feel right at all.

Alex blinks. 

Languid gaze drifting to meet first Maggie’s eyes, then Kara’s, then back at Maggie’s.

“I… I… this d-doesn’t feel right.”

Alex slurs, confused, hands trembling harder, as something else, a gas tank maybe, explodes in the distance. 

It doesn’t feel right because it isn’t, the detective wants to scream, recognizing the plume of orangeish smoke reflecting off of the tiny, glass panels of the Baker Skyscraper down the street. 

Instead, Maggie shifts her hand, ever so slightly, so she could run her fingers over Alex’s knuckles. 

It had always helped her calm down before.

“I sent out the distress beacon,” Kara bites out around her own thinly-veiled world of pain, not responding to Alex’s muddled statement, eyes still far away and distant. “A m-medic team is going to come. Okay? They’re going to get you guys out of here-”

The plume of smoke is gone, the lighting of the dilapidated parking garage settling back into the dim incandescent amber and whatever pallor the half-crescent moon will give them, and the lump in Maggie’s throat is harder to force down now, the salt blurring her vision as she watches Alex’s gaze turn back to Kara with none of the lucidness that was normally there.

“They’re going to get you guys out of here.” The blonde repeats in a hoarse ramble, “It’s probably… uh… gonna be the DEO, maybe the NC Health Evac… And it might be a little bit. B-but they’re gonna get you guys out of here. You’re going to be- to be safe. Safe.”

Kara is crying.

Even if the trails of salt carving paths through the dust, crimson, and soot doesn’t make it obvious enough, it’s betrayed in the way she’s speaking, the way her shoulders are hitching.

Maggie only remembers seeing Kara cry once before. A long, long time ago. After Mon-el had been forced off-world.

She hadn’t wanted Kara to ever see her cry again.

The sentiment is still the same. 

“I… I… B-but… whadda bout you…”

Alex forces out and even through her pain, that familiar warmness, that concern in her eyes, that protective sister instinct, it refuses to go away. Even when she coughs wetly and there's red on her teeth. Even when Maggie can’t imagine if the jacket she’s pressing against the gaping hole on her side is wet or she’s imagining it. Even with so many things. 

Kara’s brows draw together, the undistinguishable crinkle forming between them, and inexplicably she’s not rocking anymore, some resolve dredging up from somewhere deep inside to bring herself together, if only slightly. 

Like she’s preparing for an argument, the detective discerns.

Which meant neither of them were going to like what the blonde was going to say next.

“ I… I have to stay here, Alex.” 

The eldest Danvers blinks once… twice… and the beginnings of protest must be on both their faces, because Kara bulldozes right over them, keeping right on talking.

“No. No. Please we can’t… we can’t argue about this. You know S-Sam and the others are still out there-“

Kara continues, and even when her voice shakes the conviction is there. 

It’s clear she’s put some thought into this, that she had determined some time ago, and knowing the blonde before this had dissolved into a massive clusterfuck, that this was the road where all paths led.

That this is how things had to go.

And Maggie isn’t naive. 

She’d walked past buildings with their support structures blown out from beneath them, cars that were no more than burnt out husks from the gas fires, streets all but obliterated.

She knows there are people dead outside. 

She knows the number must be in the hundreds by now.

People who had been someone’s friends, family, coworkers who got caught in the crossfire and became collateral damage in this disaster.

Amongst them those she likely knew.

She hadn’t heard anything from Davidson since the Upper Eastside power grid blew.

J’onn hadn’t checked in, in ages.

And… and now Alex. 

So, it must, the detective knows, feel selfish to the blonde, that if she could still fight, to not.

Yet, a different type of curdling selfish guilt burns deep within Maggie, too hot and too cold as she presses her damn jacket up against Alex’s side, because as self-serving as it is, she wants Kara here. 

With them.

It is an unforgiving thought to have and maybe one day, long after this has all blown over, she’ll apologize for even thinking about it, but for now...

“But… but… you’re hurt.”

Alex coughs wetly, her mouth filling with liquid, red spilling out at the edges when she finishes, making way for another wave of fear and the familiar burn of white, hot panic to tear at Maggie’s soul.

She presses harder and 

“I heal… You know I do… And when the sun comes up tomorrow, this… It’ll be back to normal.”

Kara murmurs, nodding frantically with a reassuring smile that looks like it hurts, wiggling the fingers of her left arm, as if that would prove her point even when it’s still curled to her chest.

Liar. Maggie wants to say. 

She doesn’t.

“And I-I gotta plan... Okay? To take the fight away from here. To get them off world and the fight will b-be more fair-”

Liar. 

“Kara… We said we weren't going to go that direction.”

Maggie interrupts, hasty and low and desperate, realizing what the blonde is implying. 

The terrible idea had been floated once before.

Weeks ago, before all of this, when they found out it was more than just Sam and that playing nice wasn’t going to work.

And of course, the idea had immediately been shut down by Alex, by J’onn, and Winn, and her because it was ridiculous, and they were a team and that meant they did this together.

Not alone.

Not alone. Not alone. Not alone.

Not like this. 

Not with Alex hurt and the world on fire. 

Never like this.

“We’re losing, Maggie. We’re losing,” Kara warbles, low and frantic against the sound of distant gunfire and the panting breaths of her sister. “And more people are going to get hurt. More people are going to… going to die. But if there is a chance that I can save more lives. If… If… there’s a chance I can beat em. I gotta take it.”

I. I. I.

Not we.

So fully, prepared to do this on her own.

The phantom tightening off Maggie’s chest is so constricting she can barely breathe.

“N-no… Nonono…”

Alex whimpers, and her words, unlike theirs get lost in the chaos of the environment around them, so quiet as she shakes her head loosely, the crimson dark and congealed against her paling skin. So dark on the ground around them.

She can still feel it on her face. Soaking into her jeans.

Maggie presses the jacket harder up against her, overlapping hands pressing the skin of Alex’s slackening fingers whiter still, ignoring the groan that emanates from her because Jesus Christ this couldn’t be happening. 

They couldn’t be arguing over this in a parking garage with one Danvers sister ready to go on a suicide mission, the other bleeding on to the concrete. 

Every moment of the last year and a half is flashing through her mind like some kind of fucking highlight reel. 

It’s every moment she and Alex had laid in bed, fought by each other’s sides, laughed and yelled and wept. It’s every word they’ve ever spoken and every goodnight kiss. It’s every argument and caress, every stolen smirk and snicker, every nightmare and late night. It’s making inside jokes that only they’d understand.

And she can’t be thinking like this, the mere thought banging violently around in her chest, because Alex isn’t dying.

She’s going to be okay.

She’s going to be okay and Kara’s going to be okay.

Everything is going to be fine.

Fuck.

The calmness she’s trying so hard to hold onto is unraveling like the spool of a thread, like grains of sand slipping through her fingers, like the tide pulling away from the shore.

Salt clouds Maggie’s vision, the air so thick around her, she feels like she’s sucking air through a straw.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s g-gonna be okay. I know… I know you guys are scared. And… a-and I’m scared too and… and that’s okay. B-but… but you guys are my family… y-you guys have to be safe. I won’t lose you guys. I won’t. Y-you’re my family… I won’t.”

Kara whispers the last part, soft and low and so deadly serious, that Maggie wasn’t entirely sure she was supposed to hear it, like it was some reaffirmation of a promise she’d made, some blood oath.

And in the moment those last words, uttered with such conviction, leave the blonde’s mouth, Maggie realizes with a horrifying comprehension that they aren’t going to talk Kara out of this.

That after Krypton, after her whole family, after her whole world was ripped apart from her, that losing another one, or even coming close to it, was never going to be an option for her. 

What that kind of trauma does to a teenager, God only knows, but even before Maggie had known Kara and who she was, it had explained a lot of overly selfless behavior that had permeated the blonde’s personality.

But God… this… this is the very definition of self-sacrifice.

“K-Kara, we… we can’t lose you either. Please…”

Maggie begs almost, already knowing in a breath of futility what the answer will be, only for it to be confirmed when Kara’s dark, morose eyes meet her own, the trembling beginnings of what can barely be called a smile on her bruised and bleeding features.

“You’re not going to lose me.”

It sounds like a lie. 

Alex coughs again and more blood fills her mouth, coats her tongue, spills over lips parted and panting. 

Far worse than the first time as it coats her chin, dribbles down her neck, before disappearing into her uniform and all the air around Maggie disappears completely.

She isn’t a doctor, not even close, but she knows… she knows this is too much blood.

The detective’s mouth opens, to argue against Kara or to comfort Alex, she doesn’t know but the words get trapped, clogged and heavy in her throat, suffocated by the panic wrapping tightly around her soul. 

She can’t lose Alex. She can’t lose Kara. She can’t lose them both. She can’t— 

The sound of fabric tearing rips her from her matra. 

Kara’s cape.

Torn from her shoulders in a fluid movement.

Slowly, gently wiping away the crimson that’s gathered there at the edges of Alex’s mouth.

Too much red.

“They’re here. The medevac team is here, okay, Alex? You just have to hold on a little longer, until they get you to a hospital and it’ll be fine.”

Kara pleads tearfully as Maggie turns around spastically looking for the evac team and doesn’t see them, almost wanting to call Kara out for lying until she remembers of her enhanced hearing.

“And you can hold on to this, okay? Until I get back. I… I-I woulda given you my n-necklace, but I guess the world has to s-stop ending, so I can stop giving all my stuff away, huh?”

The blonde chokes on a laugh that’s all bitter and miserable, as she tucks her cape, the one she’s fought with all these years, the one from Krypton, around her shaking sister’s shoulders, and still pretends that this isn’t some kind of warped twisted goodbye.

In front of them, Alex, dazed, almost delirious from the crimson that was supposed to be in her, but wasn’t, is still shaking her head, still not understanding. 

And in the same moment, the medevac team turns the corner.

It’s the DEO, not NC Health, the white insignia stark against the indigo coloring of a van that doesn’t even have its sirens on. Dust and grime is kicked all up the sides of the normally sleek exteriors, and Maggie knows, as the wheels screech to a stop, that they’d likely been doing this all night.

“No…” 

Alex whispers, finally finding her words.

Kara shakes her head, her hand so, so warm, moving to cover both of their own. 

“You… you need to listen to me. Both of you. You’re going to be furious, you’re going to be sad, but you need to listen to me. Whatever happens… whatever happens next… I know what you g-guys are capable of. You can’t fight this, okay? You can’t be warriors. You have to let them help. Promise me. Please.”

It feels like Maggie’s being torn apart from the inside.

What kind of choice was this?

What kind of world was it where there was no good answer?

“You… you don’t need to be the hero, Kara. Stay please… you need help too.”

Maggie whispers, the selfishness rising up deep within to throw Kara’s own words back at her.

And again, Kara shakes her head as Maggie registers the sounds of the medical team approaching, hears the wheels of a stretcher moving then stopping as they wait for the go ahead. 

“N-no...no.. y-you… s-said…. El… Mar… Marayah.”

Alex pants out, dragging together enough strength for barely a whisper in the wind.

Stronger together.

The blonde’s face crumbles and she looks a way for the briefest of seconds before forcing herself to turn back.

“I k-know… I-I know I said that, b-but sometimes Lexie, we have to do these things alone.”

She whispers, words sundered by her own inner turmoil, forcing them out into the air around them. 

“And this is as brave as I know how to be.”

There’s a finality, a resignation of sorts in those words that the detective refuses to hear. 

The lights flicker around them, and Maggie wants to choke on the dusky wisps of smoke as Kara squeezes her sister's hand, then the detective’s shoulder, and smiles again as if it would fix everything or offer any real assurance when the pain is there in all of their eyes.

Then she nods to the paramedics, knees popping as she stands up, and almost like vultures they swoop in, gently pushing Maggie backwards, so they can work away at Alex.

She feels Kara’s hand on her arm, pulling up and away, when by sheer instinct, she tries to fight back to stay with Alex. 

And for the moment the two of them stand in silence, lost in their own worlds as they watch the paramedics try to put Alex Danvers back together.

It’s horrifying, yet she can’t look away, etching every moment of this memory into her mind, so she can beat herself up over it later. Listening for a confirmation or even a breath of suggestion that Alex is stable and that she’s going to make it to the hospital and for another sixty or seventy years, instead of dying on the concrete floor of a parking lot during doomsday. 

She’s not going to die. She’s not, She’s not, She’s not. 

Until finally one of them says it.

That Alex is stable and ready for transport.

And Maggie let’s herself breathe a little, let’s that little bit of hope filter its way in, even when they’re far from out of the woods, and turns to Kara...

Only to find out she is already gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Digging up bunker fics, as I clean up my google docs. Another when incoming eventually.


End file.
